On Pope's having just published his Dunciad-" At length Pope conquers: Hervey, Wortley yield"... ON BENEVOLENCE: AN EPISTLE TO EUMENES. KIND to my frailties still, Eumenes, hear; Of nauseous verses offer'd once a week, 'Twas ne'er my pride to shine by flashy fits Content if some few friends indulge my name, So slightly am I stung with Love of Fame, I would not scrawl one hundred idle lines— Yet once a moon, perhaps, I steal a night; And, if our Sire Apollo pleases, write. You smile; but all the train the Muse that follow, Christians and dunces, still we quote Apollo. To Goths, that stare astonish'd at their verse; I to sound judges from the mob appeal, And write to those who most my subject feel. Eumenes, these dry moral lines I trust With you, whom nought that's moral can disgust. With you I venture, in plain home-spun sense, What I imagine of Benevolence. Of all the monsters of the human kind, What strikes you most is the low selfish mind." |